A 'Thank You' to Bill & Gloria

By Beth Kirkdoffer

I have often wanted to thank Bill and Gloria
Gaither and all of the GVB for their gift of hymn
writing and music. Many times I enjoyed hymns
at church and on the radio without knowing it was
a Gaither hymn. Then in 2000, after my mother
died of cancer, I discovered the Gaithers on television
and found that so many of the hymns that
had helped me through the hard times were yours.

I had to deal with my grandmother having
Alzheimer’s and not knowing who we were or where she was. I dreaded getting up every
morning and wondering what I would find her like that day. I would play over and over
on the piano the chorus of “Because He Lives,” and I would think surely I can do this
“Because He Lives.” Later my mother died of cancer in 2000, and then my father died
in 2008 of cancer. As I was having to see him in the hospital as he died and then pack
and leave Arkansas to move to Virginia to be with my sisters, I made it a point to not
miss you on television because your hymns helped me so much to get through the grief
and wonder what my new life would be like. The hymns reminded me that God loves
me, no matter what, and that He is with me all the time, no matter what. That “Loving
God, Loving Each Other” is what matters most. But the song “Satisfied” tells me that
when I see my mother, father and grandmother again in heaven, they won’t be as I last
saw them, and I won’t be handicapped any more. (I am legally blind, deaf in one ear and
am an epileptic.) However in heaven “I looked at my hands, my hands looked new. I
looked at feet and they did too, and ever since that wonderful day my soul’s been satisfied!” I won’t be handicapped anymore and they won’t be sick anymore. When you sing
that song, it is all I can do to sit still. I want to get up and dance for joy, and I don’t even
know how to dance.

Thank God for the gift He has given you for the music and words — and that you
know how to say the right things that touch our lives.